Rich Johnston's fresh installment of Lying in the Gutters launches the holiday season with a rope of sorrow for Rick Olney. In the item Tighter and Tighter (scroll down) Rich tells of more creators and associates stepping forward with statements and complaints against Olney's Tightlip Entertainment.

The first is Ronee Bourgeois, mentioned previously here as having joined TLE last July, who has just resigned from her PR director position there, suffering salary losses in excess of $1000. Ronee came under criticism earlier this year after courageously exposing the Taki Soma/Charles Brownstein sexual assault incident at Mid-Ohio Con. Seven months of working for Olney has now left her minus the promised salary she counts on to feed her children with.

Martin Oakly of Bloodstained Productions, a correspondent and friend of Flaming Sword, has also come forth with complaints of monies owed him by TLE for web site production work. He tells of a bizarre experience where Olney accused him of hacking into his computer and spying for Ian Shires of DimeStore Productions, apparently another victim, as was Scott Reed of Web's Best Designs.

Rich allows for an extended response from Rick, who blasts back and promises legal action against complainants after the holidays.

Rick Olney's in for a difficult fall but there's no reason to rejoice. It's doubtful that he truly intends to follow through with his threats as he continues to blindly rush into a very tragic situation. We can only hope he'll awaken to realize what he's done and begin to make amends before it becomes too late.

Sarah Beach, Dixonverse moderator, emailed me clarifying why she allowed Rick a period of grace on the message boards, in light of his public threats to sue Chuck Dixon.

When he first showed up on Dixonverse, about November 28, Chuck was ready to ban him then. I held off, saying that we should let him post, in order that he expose to all readers his own true nature.

I suspect that he makes the mistake of thinking that the readership of the Dixonverse board is not much bigger than the number of regular posters. The reality, however is something quite different. I don't really know the current figures on the lurkership, but Chuck's board has always been fairly heavily lurkered by pros throughout the comic book industry.

Sarah's been kept unduly busy moderating Dixonverse through Rick's extended stay. His erratic and inflammatory messages caused record post deletions and discontinued discussions threads. The grace period appears to be now nearing its end.